If you had nothing to hide in the first place, then why get upset about the information being revealed? I understand about the rights of an individual in the U.S., which is what this country was founded upon, but times have changed. I don't think the founding fathers ever imagined an airplane, let alone three being used as offensive weapons.

I hear ya. I'm not all that social either. But that's neither here nor there.

That said, I think you missed the point of the suit. I don't think that the issue is of "whether or not you have anything to hide." I think that the suit is exactly what it says: a PRIVACY concern.

I think they are simply trying to put the kibash on this Pandoras Box before it goes any further.

Because where would you draw the line? I mean after all, if you don't have 'anything to hide', then surely you wouldn't mind having blood samples drawn. Or your medical records made public. Or cameras installed in your bedroom. Or a tracking device installed on your car that tells law enforcement and insurance where you drive, how fast you go, and how often you go there.

I think they are simply trying to put the kibash on this Pandoras Box before it goes any further.
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Do you honestly think that this law firm gives a rats ass about this going further, all they care about is suing people. There are plenty of lawfirms that specialise in Class Action that litterally read the paper each day looking for a potential suit. It is a well documented fact that the so called claimants in these cases (the passengers, or so called victims) receive anywhere between .5% to 3% of the actual payout, and the class action lawyers get the rest.

These lawsuits are the only reason why every year your car insurance, your medical insurance and your house insurance goes through the roof.

See, that's the normal argument for a suit like this one...it will continue to more 'private' areas of life until somebody stops it. The truth is, this really has nothing to do with privacy issues, because the federal government has every right to know who is flying on whatever flights. We may be one of the only countries in the world that DOESN'T allow it to this point.

My point of the thread was, in the wake of the attacks that year, there wasn't much anyone could do with privacy because we were all opened up to scrutiny because of the events themselves. Its a lot easier to look back from our perspective now and say that it violated privacy, but at the time people were more than willing to accept a little 'spying.'

But, like I said, people just piss me off. If there is something out there that can be contested, bet your ass there will be a lawsuit to follow shortly.

So why does the Federal government have a right to know who is flying on whatever airplane? The airline is a private company isn't it? It's up to the airline to make their rules and decide who to allow into their airplanes. Not the Federal government's job.

One by one, very quietly, our constitutional rights as individuals and private citizens are being eroded in the name of omnipresent Homeland Security.

A flight attendant buddy of mine recently phoned the reservations department of Royal Caribbean Cruises and asked "too many" questions about the departure times and port calls of a ship he was interested in sailing aboard. Several nights later, two F.B.I. agents appeared at his front door to question his motives for inquiring about the vessel's sailing times.

If you're not concerned about what's happening to our rights, you're not paying attention...

...because the federal government has every right to know who is flying on whatever flights

Can't you then extrapolate that statement of opinion to any mode of transportation?!? In other words, would you be inclined to think that the government has every right to know who is, say, driving to work, taking a bus, walking their dog, etc.?

In my opinion, the government is on a need-to-know basis. If there is a watchlist that must be monitored, fine, but this can be done in two ways:

The airlines cross-reference the Homeland Security watchlist (or whatever) to their passenger lists, thereby allowing a filter to weed out potential problems, or

The government cross-references the airlines' passenger lists to their watchlist, thereby knowing everyone who ever boards a plane.

There is a difference in the amount of information the government knows while still allowing its citizens to maintain their privacy. I'm not sure how suing NW over its violation of its own privacy policy sets any precident for this, but they didn't need to be in this situation if the setup were different, i.e. no government-bound information required.

I am constantly amazed about how little many of you know about how a law firm works (or the law for that matter). I would say that car insurance goes up primarily because of careless drivers causing injury. Sounds like the root of the issue to me.

It is getting ridiculous as evidenced in your friend being questioned about his inquiry into cruise departure times. I mean, if you're going to book a cruise you do need to know about the time schedule for that cruise.

If Royal Caribbean acts that way I will tke my business elsewhere in the future. I was condiering booking them on a trip this summer but I think I'll go with someone else. Because I DO ask questions.

I think what most of us minority-group flyers were expecting -- whether elite grade or not -- was that we'd probably all be strip-searched whenever we came close to an airport. That would be most embarrassing for me since I work for both county and state government.

Instead, the exact opposite has happened. That my background is so easy to investigate seems to be a plus rather than a minus (btw, to teach here you have to be fingerprinted). I breeze through security everywhere -- frequently while little old ladies are being strip-searched. As a matter of fact, last Saturday night when I misconnected at IAH, got sent to a hotel, and then got SSSS-ed the next morning, the nice TSA people in Houston did what they had to do by the book, looked at me like I was crazy, and then sent me on my way -- almost apologizing for stopping me.

Being a pragmatist, I'll go along with what NWA has done as long as it continues to work in my favor.

Whether the lawsuit is frivolous or not, the real issue is our privacy as American citizens. Every day the government is making a little progress into making George Orwell's predictions reality. We are allowing the government to slowly, and quietly, erode our freedoms guaranteed by the constitution.

What good will the passenger information be to the government after the fact? Knowing who was on the plane after the plane took off and landed doesn't help the government prevent another terrorist attack. All it allows is for the government to track our every move.

And the fact that a private company would offer to give up such information without permission from the consumer is a clear violation of privacy laws, and their own privacy policy. Hopefully, consumers will see that Northwest knows their disdain, too. Two good ways to do it... sue them and boycott them.

The views expressed are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect my employer’s views.

I think my point was taken the wrong way. I don't believe the government has a right to pry on just anyone they'd like to, but with air travel it is a little different than someone driving their car. Of course, justification can be brought to ANY situation you create, i.e. a car with a bomb, but when they are looking to catch the assholes who did this and are NOT trying to do this anymore, then given the circumstances around the incident, I think they were justified in releasing the information.

Now, my own personal beliefs on the matter are a different story...I believe privacy should be protected at nearly any cost. But, I have a feeling that any judge will throw this out based on the argument of the state and probably the proof of closed directives ordering NW to release the information.

I would say that car insurance goes up primarily because of careless drivers causing injury
******

Not at the rate that it does. When a guy crashes his car into someone else's car, and doesn't even create a dent in the bumper, yet manages to sue the other driver for $93.2 million dollars for... " emotional distress" and win, that is what creates the problem. If he claimed for actual damages then it would be a different story. If you look on tv, and on the billboards, it is full of ads that say:

"Are you an idiot, did you fall over your own feet today?, then do not fret, someone else must be to blame, and for 85% of your settlement, we'll help you find them"

or

"Did you spill your coffee on your lap today?, yet even though the whole world knows that coffee is hot, and that you have been drinking hot coffee every day for the last 20 years, today apparently you forgot, therefore we will sue McDonalds for 7 million dollars, because apparently, they forgot to tell you that the coffee was hot."

or my personal favourite...

"Did you break into someone elses house in the middle of the night, and in the course of carrying their tv down the stairs, you fell and the tv landed on top of you (bad tv !!). Not only are you able to sue the person who's house you broke into for not supplying you well enough lighted conditions to steal their tv, but you can also sue Panasonic for the fact that their tv was too heavy for you to steal"

To give you an idea how sad it is, when I completed my paramedic training in Canada, we were advised by legal counsel that when we are in the US, if we come across an accident, it is better that we keep on walking as you most likely be sued whether the outcome is positive or negative.

It is an international recognized joke about how bad the lawsuits in the US are. Go and google Stella Award, and have a read about some others

Why isn't NWA being bashed as much JetBlue was being bashed? I flew JetBlue before Sept '02, but I don't care that they revealed my info. It's been burned and that's all there is to it. I don't agree with people suing airlines because of this -- in this time and age, certain companies and administrations have to have certain info to keep us safe.

Nobody will win their lawsuit against NWA or JetBlue, for that matter. This is because they have to prove that they suffered financially due to the realeasing of the information. However, I think everyone would be surprised to see that.

We as citizens have certain rights-as a lawyer the "nothing to hide" argument is very interesting to me. The same "keep the government outta my nose" arch conservatives are usually the first to want to give the government the power to look under every blanket and sheet-. Its no one's business where I am flying how much a paid for my ticket-If someone has probably cause to get a search warrant let them get one if not stay out of my way.

Its also interesting to me as a lawyer how the same schmuck who will complain about lawsuits and the system will come to me when he things he can get a buck because someone else is at fault

Jeremy, bad choice in using the McDonald's case to compare this to. As I said in another thread, the McDonald's case was legit as it clearly demonstrated a unsafe product as well as willfull negligence.

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There is a lot of hype about the McDonalds' scalding coffee case. No one is in favor of frivolous cases or outlandish results; however, it is important to understand some points that were not reported in most of the stories about the case. McDonalds' coffee was not only hot, it was scalding -- capable of almost instantaneous destruction of skin, flesh and muscle. Here's the whole story.

Stella Liebeck of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was in the passenger seat of her grandson's car when she was severely burned by McDonalds' coffee in February 1992. Liebeck, 79 at the time, ordered coffee that was served in a styrofoam cup at the drivethrough window of a local McDonalds.

After receiving the order, the grandson pulled his car forward and stopped momentarily so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her coffee. (Critics of civil justice, who have pounced on this case, often charge that Liebeck was driving the car or that the vehicle was in motion when she spilled the coffee; neither is true.) Liebeck placed the cup between her knees and attempted to remove the plastic lid from the cup. As she removed the lid, the entire contents of the cup spilled into her lap.

The sweatpants Liebeck was wearing absorbed the coffee and held it next to her skin. A vascular surgeon determined that Liebeck suffered full thickness burns (or third-degree burns) over 6 percent of her body, including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin areas. She was hospitalized for eight days, during which time she underwent skin grafting. Liebeck, who also underwent debridement treatments, sought to settle her claim for $20,000, but McDonalds refused.

During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700 claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebecks. This history documented McDonalds' knowledge about the extent and nature of this hazard.

McDonalds also said during discovery that, based on a consultants advice, it held its coffee at between 180 and 190 degrees fahrenheit to maintain optimum taste. He admitted that he had not evaluated the safety ramifications at this temperature. Other establishments sell coffee at substantially lower temperatures, and coffee served at home is generally 135 to 140 degrees.

Further, McDonalds' quality assurance manager testified that the company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185 degrees, plus or minus five degrees. He also testified that a burn hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above, and that McDonalds coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn the mouth and throat. The quality assurance manager admitted that burns would occur, but testified that McDonalds had no intention of reducing the "holding temperature" of its coffee.

Plaintiffs' expert, a scholar in thermodynamics applied to human skin burns, testified that liquids, at 180 degrees, will cause a full thickness burn to human skin in two to seven seconds. Other testimony showed that as the temperature decreases toward 155 degrees, the extent of the burn relative to that temperature decreases exponentially. Thus, if Liebeck's spill had involved coffee at 155 degrees, the liquid would have cooled and given her time to avoid a serious burn.

McDonalds asserted that customers buy coffee on their way to work or home, intending to consume it there. However, the companys own research showed that customers intend to consume the coffee immediately while driving.

McDonalds also argued that consumers know coffee is hot and that its customers want it that way. The company admitted its customers were unaware that they could suffer third degree burns from the coffee and that a statement on the side of the cup was not a "warning" but a "reminder" since the location of the writing would not warn customers of the hazard.

The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages. This amount was reduced to $160,000 because the jury found Liebeck 20 percent at fault in the spill. The jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7 million in punitive damages, which equals about two days of McDonalds' coffee sales.

Post-verdict investigation found that the temperature of coffee at the local Albuquerque McDonalds had dropped to 158 degrees fahrenheit.

The trial court subsequently reduced the punitive award to $480,000 -- or three times compensatory damages -- even though the judge called McDonalds' conduct reckless, callous and willful.

FWIW, I think this lawsuit is valid as well, unlike the WN "Eenie-Meanie-Miney-Moe" lawsuit, but in the current national security mood, the plaintiff's won't have a lot of luck.

South Carolina - too small to be its own country, too big to be a mental asylum.

Garnetpalmetto, I agree completely. Even if the case was to be considered as a true violation of privacy, the circumstances swarming around the time frame that is in question are obviously going to warrant this type of release. I think any trial judge will either throw this out or seek a speedy trial to get it over with.

Another problem I have is that if this DOES, for some reason, succeed, then every person in America who has felt as if their privacy has been invaded upon by the U.S. government will be calling law firms left and right. During that time of our history, anything went as far as finding the persons responsible. I imagine this will be the same scenario.

I was going to post my thoughts on the whole matter, but you already said everything I was going to!!

Now if we could only get Judges that would just toss this sh!t OUT before it ever got in front of a jury, we as taxpayers would save a lot of money and these sleaze-bucket attorneys would quit filing these bullsh!t lawsuits and go get jobs at McDonalds.

Wasn't it Plato that said "Kill all the Lawyers"??? Amazing how insightful he was over 2,000 years ago. But the damn lawyers are still here.

Well, I'll take that comment. But in case you haven't seen the world lately, times HAVE changed. The privacy that the founding fathers were referring to was one that had very little opposition. Now, in the day of age where a person can climb on board an aircraft and do what they wish with it, privacy becomes a secondary issue.

There must be a consistent strength in the rights given to us by the U.S. Constitution, but there are some cases where those rights must be violated in order to protect more. Now, I never have condoned the fact that NW lied numerous times about the issue...this could be the basis for a lawsuit. But the fact that they turned over information for federal investigative reasons is not, and will more than likely NOT hold up in court.

Perhaps you should attend one of my lectures in political science. I teach them quite often, though I am always welcoming criticism.

the McDonald's case was legit as it clearly demonstrated a unsafe product as well as willfull negligence.
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The point wasn't whether or not the case was legit, the point was that it was NOT worth the millions of dollars that were awarded in the case. I am not advocating that people should never sue each other, just that the damages they seek are not these ridiculous amounts.

First, learn the purpose of awarding damages--both punitive and compensatory. It's painfully clear most of you don't have a clue what they are.
Then, you can comment on their legitimacy--but be forewarned, these damages were more than likely awarded by people just like you sitting on a jury. Further, awards can be set aside, as above, if the court finds them excessive.

Quite frankly, in the McDonalds case, more competent representation would have resulted in a much higher award--even thought it was ultimately reduced.

The point wasn't whether or not the case was legit, the point was that it was NOT worth the millions of dollars that were awarded in the case.

Millions weren't awarded though. The judge reduced the punitive damages and served as an effective check on what some consider a runaway jury.

As for judges throwing out useless lawsuits, they do that plenty of times, we just fail to hear about it because it's a regular occurrence. When the media finds a juicy story though, they're all over it. The sole exceptions I know of when a judge threw out a frivolous lawsuit and it hit the media were the McDonald's obesity case (where the judge basically TOLD the attorney how to modify it to end its frivolity but the attorney failed to listen) and when the judge threw out FoxNews's case against Al Franken.

South Carolina - too small to be its own country, too big to be a mental asylum.

Since we seem to have several informed members who have a much better grasp of the courts/lawyers/laws than I, could someone explain just exactly, specifically, what in the NWA Privacy Policy was broken? An example of the wording in this policy and how it applied would be great. This might clarify a lot of things.

Once we have this information then more intelligent decisions can be made based on known facts. From other threads I thought it said only that NW would not divulge information to third parties for marketing purposes or something close to those words. Can anyone help?

JetBlue and NWA are unfortunately the first spokes on this new wheel(for lack of a better term) on this issue and even with the lawsuits approved or denied, it is we, the consumer who will bear the costs in ALL of this. The way things are now, you can't do a lot of things without being questioned or scrutinized that we took for granted a couple of years ago compared to now.

If I wanted you, or the Government to know where I was and where I was going I would tell them, but I don't. That's ABSOLUTELY NONE of their business, and ESPECIALLY since they have no reason to know, having my Credit Card Number and other information like it WILL NOT help them stop terrorists, no matter what anyone says.

Yes, the times have changed, but that doesn't need they need to know even more about me, there are other ways of protecting the country.

Like how? How exactly would we, as a nation, go about protecting ourselves in other ways? I'm fairly partial to the fact that I don't mind the government knowing where I am, since they already do right now. I think the nation has turned into an apathetic one which allowed such indiscretions to be allowed, such as our ignorance as a world power, and ultimately resulted in our own attack.

Now please, don't misunderstand me. I am not in agreement with the way that NW handled this situation, especially how they lied to their customers and shareholders about it all. BUT, if this is such a 'horrible invasion' of our privacy, then what do you think happens at the major airports in America during the security screening? Do you really think that the government doesn't have cameras all over you and doesn't know who you are and where you are going? If so, I'd advise you to rethink your priorities.

I can already feel discontent with this post, but I've seen the front lines in today's war...I've seen the despair on the soldiers who fight for this nation and the fear in the eyes of the enemy. Believe me, having Uncle Sam check up on us is the LEAST of our concerns...and yes, it will stop there. This isn't some sort of push to erode the rights of the individual. If you think this is going to happen, please wake up and see what is going on around you.

As for the lawsuit, I would be very surprised to see it even enter a trial, let alone in favor of the plaintiffs. Challenging the state during one of our worst times in history since Pearl Harbor is not a good idea...and will not last very long.

I am shocked that so many of you are willing to give up your basic rights so easily for supposed safety. We can't, and won't ever be completely safe. Remember this: the information that is being collected about you is being collected by the same administration that led us to war thinking we were in imminent danger of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They've lied before, and they still are. We've been told the information will be destroyed, but how can we know? And if they are so eager to destroy it, why do they need it in the first place?

A lot of scary things are happening to our basic civil liberties right now, and unless we ask a lot of questions and challenge changes, we soon will have lost those civil liberties that we hold dear. The Patriot Act alone should be getting us all thinking, and worried.

The views expressed are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect my employer’s views.